


Dad'nport

by angelfrog (gaywizard)



Series: you are my dad(you're my dad) boogie woogie woogie [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Found Family, M/M, Snapshots, Spoilers for Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, davenport is my favourite character i love him a LOT sdlkfs hes so good, its 3 am when im posting this yeehaw, s o good, the major character death is for stolen century, this is seven pages of me having dad feelings, uhh taako gets hurt at some point but its very not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25180540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaywizard/pseuds/angelfrog
Summary: snapshots across time of davenport(and some of merle) being a dad across the stolen century, moonbase, and post story and song.“I didn’t mean to, dad. Swear it.” Taako continued stirring for a minute longer, before the extended silence from Davenport made him think about what he said.He froze. The pasta slid off of the wooden spoon in his hand, and he stood there for a long second where there was absolutely no noise. And then Davenport awkwardly cleared his throat, and continued talking.“That’s, uh. That’s what they all say.” Davenport said.
Relationships: Davenport & Angus McDonald, Davenport & Lup (The Adventure Zone), Davenport & Taako (The Adventure Zone), Davenport (The Adventure Zone) & Everyone, Davenport/Merle Highchurch, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Series: you are my dad(you're my dad) boogie woogie woogie [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1851136
Comments: 18
Kudos: 161





	Dad'nport

There were pros and cons to this cycle. Lup and Taako had written them all out, one day, roughly halfway through, flat on their stomachs in the common room with a piece of paper between them. 

The list went something like this:

_Pros:_

  * _davenport+merle are chilling out_


  * found the light


  * cool plants



_Cons:_

  * _rip team human :(_


  * mean inhabitants


  * NO exciting cuisine :(((



It was not a comprehensive list, by any means, but it summed it up. 

Davenport and Merle had been relaxing more, taking part in the Taaco Twins Trademarked Spa Nights™ and going on walks together. 

The three humans, Barry, Lucretia, and Magnus, had all been killed pretty damn quickly(their choice- the inhabitants had something going on, and had demanded that they die in order for the rest of the crew to take the light.) (It was a quick and painless death, they were later informed.) 

So, all in all, it wasn’t the worst cycle. It was rough, without the three, but it wasn’t all bad. Lup had told Taako, one night, drunk as a skunk off local elderflower wine(stolen), that Davenport and Merle had been feeling more and more dad-like recently. (Taako agreed, though he had scoffed at the time. And quickly took a swig of wine to hide his face.)

It was true. Davenport and Merle, without anyone else to diffuse it, were becoming Absolute Dads. Davenport would make tea with too much sugar whenever he caught someone up with nightmares, and Merle had taken to dragging one or both of the twins on hikes. Without a map, because he didn’t need one, dammit. He had threatened to turn this hike around more than once. 

Taako had been quietly calling it the Dad Cycle. It fit, really.

\--

The first time Taako called Davenport dad was an accident. He was making dinner, a pasta type dish with hearty noodles and local meat and vegetables. Davenport had been sitting at the table, drinking a mug of Earl Grey.

“-Can’t believe them. The whole lot,” Davenport sighed into his mug. Taako snickered. 

“Yeah, that sounds about right. Can’t believe I missed it.” 

“If you hadn’t fallen off a cliff, you wouldn’t have.” 

Taako was aware that Davenport was staring at him accusingly over the rim of his mug. He laughed, sounding guilty. 

“I didn’t _mean_ to, dad. Swear it.” Taako continued stirring for a minute longer, before the extended silence from Davenport made him think about what he said. 

He froze. The pasta slid off of the wooden spoon in his hand, and he stood there for a long second where there was absolutely no noise. And then Davenport awkwardly cleared his throat, and continued talking. 

“That’s, uh. That’s what they all say.” Davenport said. Taako turned around in time to see the beaming smile on the gnomes face and the glimmer of a single tear in his eye. Surely Davenport wasn’t laughing at him? It didn’t look like a mocking smile, however. 

“Yeah.” Taako said, ignoring the blush on his cheeks. If there was anything he was good at, it was pretending something hadn’t happened. 

\--

The first time _Lup_ called Davenport dad wasn’t an accident. Or rather, it was, but she was drunk at the time. It wouldn’t have happened if she were sober.

As it were, she was a bottle and a half into the fairly potent elderflower wine when she went on walkabout. It was too late to be awake, but she was having Barry-related dreams and couldn’t bear to be asleep. That’s where Davenport found her, on the common room couch and fairly close to tears. 

“Lup?” He said softly, creeping out of his quarters. 

She sniffed, and buried her head in her arms. 

“Oh, Lup. It’s okay.” His voice was comforting, and Lup was vaguely aware of him making tea and bustling about in the kitchen.

(The kitchen had a fairly ingenious design for smaller races, which was useful for Davenport making tea and a good way to kneecap yourself at three in the morning if you didn’t have darkvision. If you kicked the bottom drawer of the counters, it would flip up into a flat shelf. Magnus discovered it with his leg and a whole lot of bruising, quite early on.)

It felt like no time at all until he was gently making her sit up, a careful hand on her shoulders, and pressing a warm mug into her hands. Lup sagged back against the couch. It wasn’t great tea, too sweet, but it did the trick. 

“Thanks, cap. You’re the best dad.” She mumbled into her drink. 

Davenport froze slightly, where he was sitting next to her. 

Lup dozed off, there, on the couch. Davenport carefully took the mug out of her hands, spread a blanket over her, and went back to bed. She didn’t remember it, in the morning.

\--

Merle had embraced his dad energies very early on. He would lecture any one of the crew, Davenport included, if they did something reckless and got killed early on. He was brewing up a right furious one for Team Human, at the moment, muttering to himself and pacing the common room. It was starting to get dark, sunset lighting up the round windows, but he didn’t notice.

Merle threw his hands in the air in a particularly impassioned movement. The Lucretia in his head was arguing back, and Merle was getting well and truly riled up.

A gentle hand gripped his shoulder. Davenport looked at him and raised an eyebrow. 

“Merle. You’re going to pace a hole in the floor.” His voice was soft, friend instead of captain. 

Merle sighed, sagging.

“Those damn kids.” He muttered, instead of any sort of proper answer. Dav snorted. 

“It was their choice. You can yell at them when they get back, but for now, you should go to sleep.” 

Merle huffed and snorted and winced. 

“I, uh. I’m not sleeping so well. Too quiet.” He finally said, gaze sliding to a far corner, away from Davenport. He could feel the warmth in his cheeks. 

“I’m not, either.” Davenport said, looking almost amused. “But we can’t both be down.”

Merle cracked a tiny grin. 

“Can’t have that.” 

“Of course not. Now, you’re going to go to bed, and I’m going to sit and read my book until you do.” Davenport sniffed, daring Merle to object. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Merle said, his grin softening into something tender and sweet. Davenport ignored the ache in his chest at the sight. But, before he could stop himself, an offer tumbled over his lips:

“If it’s the quiet keeping you up, my cabin’s closer to the engine. You can hear it humming. You’re welcome to sleep there, if you’d like.” Davenport said. He _studiously_ ignored Merle’s suggestive eyebrow-wiggling. 

“I might take you up on that, cap’n.” Merle said after a solid 70 seconds of eyebrow filled silence. Davenport smiled. 

(Taako shrieked when Merle emerged from Davenport’s cabin the next morning, for all that they didn’t do anything besides sleep. It was the spirit of the thing, you understand.)

(Davenport was bright red for the rest of the day, a sight Lup, Taako, and the traitor Merle all delighted in pointing out.) 

(He did smile into his mug when Taako complained about his ‘dads boning, gross. Nasty old men,’ but that was between him and his tea.)

\--

Taako was laying on the kitchen table looking annoyed. 

“You could’ve broken your leg! What were you _thinking_ , dumbass!” Merle shouted, looking absolutely furious. He had his hand pressed flat against a series of abrasions on Taako’s calf, applying an uncomfortable amount of pressure. 

Taako groaned. 

“I wasn’t, old man. You think I would’ve jumped from that rock if I was?” He grumbled, flinging an arm over his eyes. 

“I don’t have infinite spell slots, and the only reason I didn’t leave you to limp your own damn way home was because Dav would’ve kicked me out!” Merle pressed down harder, earning a yelp from Taako. 

“First of all, gross. Second of all, you’re not my fucking _keeper!_ ” Taako spat, propping himself up on his elbows to glare at the dwarf, who looked even more annoyed. 

“Jesus, you’re worse than Maggie,” Merle growled. He was mostly done with healing the wounds on Taako’s leg. “Because at least he has the decency to be nice to the person wasting a spell slot on him.” 

“Fuckin’, fine. Thanks, Merle, for not making me stagger home after falling off a rock.” Taako said, sliding out of Merle’s grip and off the table. He was annoyed, and his legs still hurt, and sometimes Merle’s healing spells got him a little fucked up, so he wasn’t really aware of it when he grumbled, “Davenport’s still my favorite dad, between you two dickheads. Going with him in the divorce.” 

Merle snorted. 

“I’ll be sure to let him know.” 

\--

“Jesus, _dad_.” Taako said, one night, over dinner. Merle snorted, and Davenport, who he was addressing, choked on his drink. 

“Yeah, _Dad_!” Lup chimed in cheerfully.

“Is this what having teenagers is like?” Davenport said to Merle, looking very tired. Merle laughed. “I feel bad about what I put my mother through.” 

Taako grinned brightly. 

Lup was also grinning, but she gasped and turned to Taako with a Look in her eye. 

“Dad’nport!”

“Oh, no.” Davenport groaned.

“Oh, _yes!_ ”

They called him that for the rest of the cycle. Merle laughed himself silly more than once. 

\--

When Magnus, Barry, and Lucretia reformed, Lup and Taako sagged against each other in relief and grinned. 

They were all back together, and both Taako and Lup were looking forward to seeing Merle’s lecture(they’d both sat through several variations, giving critiques). 

Dinner that night was loud, and happy, and they didn’t care that they didn’t see the light that night. Merle’s lecture was one for the ages, leaving all three humans looking very guilty and rather shaken up. He ended it on a soft note, though, calling them assholes for ‘making the people that care about them sad’. 

(Barry looked very upset by that, but. Lup figured he kinda deserved it for making her suffer through an _entire_ year without her science partner.)

They stayed up late into the night, drinking the rest of the terrible elderflower wine and reminiscing.

\--

The first time Magnus heard Taako refer to Davenport as Dad’nport, his eyes went wide as saucers and he grinned so broadly Taako thought he might cry. 

“ _Dad’nport!_ ” He absolutely boomed, sweeping Taako and their very distinguished captain into a bear hug. 

Davenport glared at Taako and mouthed ‘I’ll make you regret this’. Taako laughed and laughed and laughed. 

\--

“Why’re you such a dad.” Taako mumbled, leaning almost literally on top of Merle. Merle grimaced. Taako was drunk as _fuck_ , staggering across the quad. They had found the on-moon bar, run by Avi on his down hours and staffed by pretty much anyone who wanted to, and Taako had ordered at least four neon blue cocktails over the course of the night. Not that Merle blamed him, after the shitshow that was Phandolin, but. Jeez. 

“You don’t make it easy, asshole.” Merle said, instead of articulating his feelings on the matter. 

“Wh’ever.” Taako said, leaning even more on Merle. He was pretty much asleep at this point, and Merle groaned in annoyance. They were _so close_ to their dorm. 

Davenport swept up out of nowhere with a tired smile, grabbing Taako’s other arm and carefully pulling some of his weight off Merle.

Merle grinned at him thankfully, the familiarity of the scene making his heart ache in a way he couldn’t identify and leaving a staticky aftertaste in his throat. Taako didn’t seem to mind, huffing a laugh that might’ve sounded a lot like ‘dad’nport’ and might’ve sounded a lot like a mouthful of nothing. 

Taako didn’t remember, in the morning, instead just begging a hangover cure off Pringles and regretting it even more than the cocktails. Pringles shrugged when Taako shrieked in pain and said it was ‘a work in progress, man’. 

Merle laughed, and forgot all about the incident.

\--

Davenport wasn’t dumb. He may have some sort of _very_ inconvenient vocal issues, but he wasn’t a dullard. He knew that when he found Taako slumped over a table in the cafeteria, shoulders shaking in sobs, he could make overly sweet tea and it would be fine. 

Taako took the mug, when Davenport slid it across the table, scrubbing dried tears off his face and trying to grin. 

It was four in the morning. Nobody should be awake, but here they were. Humble idiot wizard and pokegnome. 

Davenport would never tell Lucretia about Taako breaking down at him, after drinking the tea, whispering about Glamour Springs and how it wasn’t his fault. Parts of it slipped past him, specifically about the dying over and over again(a l̵̛̈́̓͑ŏ̵̈́ö̵͓͋̃̈́͌̓p̷͍̳̍̌̍̽̐. A c̷̜̰̟̻̥̣̓͂͑̏̇̈̐̒͊̚͝y̵̜̯̹̫͌̎ͅc̸̙̭̜̟̓͝l̵̏̈͋͋ȩ̷̠̣̤̻̫̖̼̰͗͋̂́͒̂͝), but he caught the important bits and he made more tea and if they stayed there until dawn broke over the moon, well. 

Davenport wasn’t an idiot.

\--

“You took _everything_ from me!” Taako’s voice was raw, and his hand was shaking. Davenport- Davenport looked _scared_. He hadn’t drunk the ichor yet, and that, more than anything else, broke Taako’s heart. 

Not only did Lucretia take his _twin sister_ , but. She took the rest of his family, too. 

She took everything. 

Taako screamed.

Tears streaked down his face, and it wasn’t until Davenport spoke again, actually spoke, his captain, his _captain_ , that Taako even began to think about not punching the shit out of Lucretia. 

It didn’t help that he missed _her_ , too. 

\--

Davenport sailed far and wide. The chill of sea air on his face was grounding, and he adopted a cat, and he sent postcards.

He was doing okay. There were the occasional days where he was a stuttering mess, and some days where he was so angry at Lucretia he stood on deck and screamed. (And screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and-) 

But he was doing okay. 

He visited Merle the most. He lived close to shore, and, well. If he missed sharing a bed with the dwarf, that was his business and nobody else’s. (And if they occasionally did more than sleep, _well._ )

He missed everyone else, of course, but it wasn’t until Candlenights about two years post-story and song that he got to see everyone again. 

Taako had invited him to his and Kravitz’s shockingly modest home for the celebration, and he accepted with an amused grin. It was bustling full, glittering and only minorly on fire, and it was so full of family and people and love that Davenport relaxed. The two glasses of very nice wine also didn’t hurt. 

Angus sought him out at some point, bursting with questions about theoretical bond physics and the actual mechanics of flying the Starblaster. Davenport was happy to answer them, smiling fondly. The little human boy reminded him strongly of Magnus(but with less punching instincts)- hyperactive and puppy-like. 

“That’s so interesting, sir! Is it because of the masts, or is it a less technical reason?” 

“Angus, you don’t need to call me sir, I’ve told you. Just- just Dav is fine. Or Captain, if you’re feeling formal.” Davenport smiled at the boy, taking another sip of his wine. Angus blushed.

“I know, but Taako said I could only call you Grampa’port or nothing, or he’ll ground me from magic lessons.” He grinned when Davenport choked on his wine. 

“Fuck. Of course he did. I’ll go talk to him,” Davenport said with a sigh. “I won’t let him ground you if you won’t want to call me that.”

“Oh, I don’t mind! I just thought you might.” Angus said, his smile incredibly bright. Davenport squinted at him. Took another sip of wine. 

“Does Taako still refer to me as Dad’nport?” He eventually asked. Angus nodded, grin growing. “... Right.” 

He nodded his way out of the conversation, promising to try and find a schematic if he could for Angus to look at. He found Taako leaning against the granite countertop in the kitchen, chatting with Kravitz. 

Davenport put on his best Captainly Disapproval Face™ and crossed his arms at him. Taako blanched and smiled uncertainly at him. 

“Hey, cap’n,” Taako said. One hundred years of Davenport as his captain, and he wasn't going to stop treating him as such any time soon. 

“Taako.” It was difficult, keeping a straight face, but it was worth it for the look on Taako’s face and the concern growing on Kravitz’s.

“What can I, uh, what can I do you for?” Taako said, fingers twitching like they longed to hold a glass of wine. 

“I hear you’re threatening to ground my grandson.” Davenport said sternly, raising an eyebrow. Kravitz choked on nothing, eyes wide. “Is this true?”

Taako coughed, once, blood returning to his face at full force. He was beet red. 

“Uh. No, uh, no idea what you’re talking about. Captain, uh, Dad. Sir.” Taako finally managed to get out, avoiding eye contact like his life depended on it. Kravitz looked like he desperately wanted to laugh but he wasn’t sure if it was appropriate at _all_.

Davenport snorted, his facade breaking. Taako groaned. 

“Jesus, cap’nport. You’re killing me,” Taako said, sagging against both Kravitz and the counter, one of which snickered gently. Taako glared at Kravitz. “How dare you betray me like this, Krav.” 

Kravitz shrugged, looking unconcerned. 

Davenport had met him before, and it was about as awkward as a ‘dad meeting boyfriend’ meeting can be if one’s dead and one’s not actually a dad. Davenport liked him, though, which is all that seemed to matter. (Dav hadn’t told Kravitz this until after he had stuttered out a whole speech about his intentions with Taako, which Davenport still laughs about with Merle occasionally. It was a gloriously bad speech, but the intentions were pure.)

Either way, Davenport laughed into his wine and went to check on his other kids. 

A dad’s work is never done, or some shit like that. 

And if he and Merle both got mugs that said #1 Dad, he would chalk it up to having loving pseudo children that would _never_ try and pit him and Merle against each other for a bet. 

(Kravitz was his favorite. Told him about any and all betting pools he wasn’t directly involved in. Davenport used this knowledge at every opportunity.)

**Author's Note:**

> i've made some minor edits(phrasing and the like) so if u notice that CongRats also i. am going to fill up the davenport&everyone tags if it kills me so lemme know if u have any rad dad'nport bonding u wanna see !! i think im gonna do a stolen century one w/ magnus next :33


End file.
